We'll admit that when we heard the City Council inviting city residents to come out at 6:00 am on Labor Day to clean up the city we didn't think it would amount to much - after all, who wants to work on a holiday? - Especially when it's one of the hottest days of the year?

But, the Council knew what it was doing; city hall staffers did their groundwork sending out corporate letters well in advance - and they got an overwhelming turnout - as many 500 persons - including council staff - came out.

Today, the mayor raved about the success:

Darrell Bradley - Mayor, Belize City Council"It was very successful. This is part of our campaign in the sanitation area of our 100 day plan. We had put this labor for Belize City initiative, and we've been planning it for the last 6 weeks. It was very successful. We had 31 projects going on yesterday throughout Belize City. We started bright and early at 6 a.m. Most of the projects were finished by 10 to 10:30 a.m. After that, we had some of our works crew just going about the city just ensuring that things like all the garbage has been picked up, and that all of the projects signed off well. We had in excess of 500 persons, and we had issued 1500 garbage bags; we ran out of garbage bags. So, our count put it that we collected over 1500 bags of trash from the various projects throughout Belize City. We deem it a success, and this is something that we want to do on a regular basis - not every month - but we want to do it as regularly as possible to encourage people to really keep Belize City clean. People want to see a better community, and they want to work with you, but they want to see that there is structure with a way that they could fit into a plan."

The Mayor says he plans to do it again - but probably not as often as once a month...

500 strong clean up Belize City on Labor Day

While a majority of residents enjoyed a day off from school and work on Labor Day, Belize City Mayor Darrell Bradley and a dedicated army of five hundred men, women and children had their hands in the dirt, ridding the streets of the Old Capital of excess refuse. The initiative was dubbed Labor for Belize, a massive cleanup campaign organized by the Belize City Council and its corporate partners. The objective was to get into as many hotspots as they could during the operation and give the city a much needed makeover by painting signs and planting trees. According to Mayor Bradley, the drive was very effective.

Darrell Bradley, Belize City Mayor

“It was very, very successful. We had over five hundred residents and businesses come out to support the initiative and we had thirty-one projects going on throughout Belize City. The city council and employees of the city council, we were primarily responsible for the Northern Highway, from San Cas Plaza to the Haulover Bridge, and we did a series of cleanup campaigns out there. We painted some of the trees, we planted trees and we did other activities in the area just to restore the look of the area. We had tremendous support from residents and from corporate sponsors. Both of the sanitation contractors were out there giving us assistance throughout the day. We had a lot of schools participating, a lot of businesses, Benny’s came out, RF&G came out and lots of businesses came out to really support the initiative.”

Isani Cayetano

Darrell Bradley

“In terms of some of the problem areas or what we would describe as hotspots for garbage and litter and what have you, how was that addressed within that short space of time?”

Darrell Bradley

“Well some of the areas that we cleaned were designated hotspot areas. Some of these hotspots were located along Mahogany Street. We cleaned that area [and] we had a very, very nice program, lots of students went out to that area. We cleaned both sides of the streets and we planted and in a lot of other areas, for example in the Cemetery Lane area, behind the Civic Center, Mopan Street. So we targeted some of the areas where there was community interest in doing activities on Labor Day and areas also which were identified as being some of these hotspot zones.”